Finding Mistakes & Clapping Respectfully

“I found the mistake! Do you see it? Everybody clap…respectfully!”

Ernest C. Bairstow, the sculptor who carved “euture” instead of “future” on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial, wasn’t there to hear it, but I like to think that he would have appreciated the moment on Wednesday night when an eighth-grade student exhorted her classmates to applaud his error. You see, while it is not (yet) etched into our classroom wall, we do have a poster reminding Bikkurim students that “mistakes are proof that you are trying.” What we’re cheering for isn’t the mistake itself, of course, but rather the proof of effort, of risk-taking.

But take a closer look: this moment contains all three of the Beit Rabban pillars– the values on which our school stands. 

Active Learning: “I found the mistake!”

One hint from a teacher that there was something worth finding in this text sent students running to crane their necks up at Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. As they read, one asked, “Is ‘four score and seven years ago’ in this one?” (No.) Another wanted to know how much of his second term Lincoln served (41 days), and a third asked if this was before or after Inauguration Day was moved from March to January (before). 

During our three days in Washington, the air positively hummed with the pure energy of student learning: they worked in chavruta to study artifacts at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, assessing how well the museum’s mission is served by including such items as a report card from one of the Little Rock Nine; over breakfast, they reviewed statistics food insecurity for asylum seekers; they even used their knowledge of D.C.’s carefully-designed street grid to predict how many blocks until we reached our next destination. 

Kind Community: “Do you see it?”

Some eighth-graders might have searched for the “typo” in the stone, then smugly bragged to the others about their proofreading prowess. Our kids? Once a student located the errant “e” in the text, she turned immediately to her classmates. “Can you find the word ‘engrosses’ in there? Keep going…do you see it? High five!” 

“Kindness” and “community” are educational buzzwords these days, right up there with “executive function” and “grit.” But let me tell you what a truly kind community looks like:

• [To a classmate] “It doesn’t really matter how we split up for the ride; we’ll find something to talk about!”

• [To a teacher] “Our room would like to be woken up at six…but will that let you get enough sleep tonight?”

• [To a Congressional staffer] “My mom tells me to bring a granola bar with me in my bag to give to hungry people, but I want to know how I can do more to help.”

Bikkurim students wrote thank-you cards to the Amtrak conductor who kept us grinning with an enthusiastic announcement at each new stop. They cheered for the trolley driver at Monuments by Moonlight. They arranged shower schedules to give the “morning people” the earliest slots, held doors for strangers, and offered spontaneous compliments on each other’s lobbying speeches. In short, they were mensches, pure and simple.

Empowered Judaism: “Everybody clap…respectfully!”

Pirkei Avot tells us that “Im ein derech eretz, ein Torah” — without courtesy, there is no Torah. All around the Lincoln Memorial are signs reading, “Quiet, Respect Please,” and I’d be proud enough of our students if they’d just been following the rules. But when that student told her friends to clap “respectfully,” it wasn’t just out of deference to the sensitivities of others. A few minutes earlier, as we climbed the slippery marble steps up to the main shrine, a student asked, “Is it all right to take pictures of us with the memorial, or is it like visiting a cemetery?” Assured that it was fine, he said, “Especially since I’m wearing a kippah, I want to make sure we’re doing it right.” 

That awareness of Jewish identity, responsibility, and values showed itself in myriad ways during this trip. There were the big moments: saying an El Malei Rachamim (prayer for the soul of the deceased) for Emmett Till in the memorial dedicated to his memory; telling a Senate staffer about the mitzvah of peah (not reaping the corners of the fields) and connecting it to SNAP benefits for people experiencing food insecurity. There were the little moments: running into some friends from Jewish summer camp in front of the Washington Monument; responding to Congressman Nadler’s query of “Atem medabrim Ivrit?” (Do you speak Hebrew?). And there were the mundane moments: davening mincha between the smokehouse and the kitchen garden on George Washington’s estate; eating the same dinner twice in a row because of D.C.’s dearth of kosher options. Once, as we waited in line for the bathrooms at a museum, a kippah-wearing passerby remarked, “Am Yisrael chai!” Amen. 

We have just twenty more school days until our Bikkurim students leave us, and these last weeks are always a blur of activity and emotion: placement tests, graduation prep, capstone projects, and tearful farewells to friends and mentors. And, of course, we adults will fret over them: are they really ready? But Wednesday night in our nation’s capital, I kvelled to see the thoughtful, empathetic, intellectual, curious Jews we’ve helped to raise. Moreover, I have zero doubt that they will show the world exactly what Beit Rabban is all about. After all, as we left the Lincoln Memorial behind and sprinted back toward the trolley, they had one more question:

“Is it all right if we dance in the rain?”